IFC cozying up to ‘Strangers’

One more case of a short film successfully serving as a template for a feature length project, IFC Films have taken the domestic rights to Strangers – an import that played well at Sundance and will get a second viewing at the Tribeca in a couple of days from now.

Following in the footsteps of a slew of dramas that demonstrate how Israeli and Palestinians can co-exist but there are always tensions that prevent life from being simple, this uses the Romeo and Juliet type tale of a romance to describe the story of an Israeli man (Liron Levo) and Palestinian woman (Lubna Azabal from the head spinning road trip movie Exils and the critically acclaimed Paradise Now ) with on-the-nail observations of the tensions created by a common but conflictive Mideast background.

Co-directors Erez Tadmor and Guy Nattiv saw their short film (going by the same name as their feature-length film) win the Online Film Festival Viewers Award at Sundance in 2004.